From kinzler@cs.indiana.edu Sun Feb 18 21:35:37 1990
Path: iuvax!kinzler
From: kinzler@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (Stephen Kinzler)
Newsgroups: rec.humor
Subject: Usenet Oracularities #122
Message-ID: <36248@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu>
Date: 19 Feb 90 02:35:37 GMT
Reply-To: oracle-vote@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu
Organization: Indiana University, Bloomington

=== 122 ==================================================================
Title: Usenet Oracularities #122
Compiled-By: Steve Kinzler <kinzler@cs.indiana.edu>
Date: 19 Feb 90 02:35:37 GMT

To find out how to participate in the Usenet Oracle, send mail to:
    oracle@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu    or    {ames,rutgers}!iuvax!oracle
with the word "help" in the subject line.  To receive these postings via
mail, send mail to oracle-request on the same machine.  Back postings
are available via anonymous ftp on iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (129.79.254.192)
in the directory pub/oracle.  Let us know what you like!  Send your
ratings of these Oracularities on a scale of 1 = "not funny" to 5 =
"very funny" with the volume number to oracle-vote, eg:
    100
    2 1 3 4 3 5 3 3 4 1

--- 122-01 ---------------------------------------------------------------
Selected-By: Steve Kinzler <kinzler@cs.indiana.edu>

The Usenet Oracle has pondered your question deeply.
Your question was:

> In 1987, in Canterbury, Kent, England, on the 22nd September, at
> precisely 9.34 pm, absolutely nothing unusual or of the remotest
> interest to anybody who doesn't live in Canterbury happened.  Can you
> tell me why this happened, who is responsible for this non-event, and
> what can be done to prevent it ever not-happening again?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} Nothing happens occasionally.  Chalk it up to a God who's getting some
} rest.  Gods are people too.
}
} *INTERRUPT*
} Message from god@your.host.is.as.good.as.mine:
} -----
} Wait a minute here.
} You aren't telling the whole truth.
} *RESPONSE REQUIRED*
}
} Sir, I am not required to tell the whole truth.
}
} *INTERRUPT*
} Message from god@the.domain:
} -----
} Humor me.
} *RESPONSE REQUIRED*
}
} Fine.
}
} Perhaps I was smoothing over the part that NO God out of the large host
} of them was busy in that particular place in England at the time.  They
} were all busy elsewhere.
}
} *INTERRUPT*
} Message from allah@mid.east.backbone:
} -----
} There is no other God besides myself.
} *RESPONSE REQUIRED*
}
} Sir, I am not going to get into this argument.  It is beyond my faculty.
}
} *INTERRUPT*
} Message from zeus@valhalla.edu:
} -----
} Are we going to start this again?  I thought we all agreed to remain in
} our own domains until a new solution was evident.  Why is god and allah
} in iuvax.cs.indiana.edu?  I was sure that domain was covered...
} *INTERRUPT*
} Message from kinzler@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu:
} -----
} Don't hang this on me!
} *END MESSAGE*
} ...by that graduate student.
} *END MESSAGE*
}
} .
} .
} .
}
} The rest of this transmission has been edited out by the oracle to save
} network space.  When gods argue it tends to get verbose.
}
} You owe the oracle a protocol analyzer.

--- 122-02 ---------------------------------------------------------------
Selected-By: Steve Kinzler <kinzler@cs.indiana.edu>

The Usenet Oracle has pondered your question deeply.
Your question was:

> tell me great wise one.  who was the youngest president to be elected.
>
> who was the youngest vice-president to be elected?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} The youngest president to be elected was Ungawa Zbalipat.  He was
} elected president of the Bagu-Magi pigmy tribe in eastern Africa.  He
} was only thirteen years old.  He was elected for his sexual prowess, as
} was customary within this tribe.  His prowess was based on the fact that
} at the age of ten and a half, he impregnated one of the women of the
} tribe:  the youngest tribal member ever to impregnate a woman.
} Incidentally, this leads on to your next question.  The tribe was so
} impressed with this feat that they were sure the offspring would become
} a great member of the tribe as well, so they elected his son
} vice-president at birth.  His was elected even before he was named, but
} it turns out that the youngest vice president elected was Pago Raputok.
} (Aside:  It is a tribal custom to make the last letter of the first name
} the second-to-last letter of the last name.  Names are not patrilineal,
} i.e.  they are not taken from the father's last name as we do, but
} rather they're just made up.  Not having TV they need something to
} occupy their time and thinking up new names takes up a good amount of
} time, especially since they try not to use names that have been used in
} the past 13 generations.  [Aside from the aside:  Thirteen is a very
} holy number to the Bagu-Magis but that's an entirely different story
} which I'll discuss next time somebody asks me a question about the
} Bagu-Magis] The additional challenge is trying to remember 13
} generations worth of names since the tribe has not developed a written
} language.  Between that and eating berries, they keep rather busy.
} [Second aside from the first original aside:  the berries they eat cause
} them to have visions which they don't distinguish from reality since
} they are too stoned most of the time to derive a concept such as the
} concept of drugs but that's a different story too.  Some other time]).
}
}    The Omniscient Oracle hopes you have been enlightened.

--- 122-03 ---------------------------------------------------------------
Selected-By: Steve Kinzler <kinzler@cs.indiana.edu>

The Usenet Oracle has pondered your question deeply.
Your question was:

> Ora Cle
> 1 Uvaxcs
> Indiana, EDU
>
> Dear Ora,
>
> You may be the winner of $10,000,000.01 if I select your personal lucky
> number as the winning number on national television.  Your number is
>             129.79.254.192
> No one else has this number.  Just think of what the Cle family could do
> with $10,000,000.01!  (Paid in convenient annual installments of
> $10.00.) BUT -- you can't win if you don't return your entry form.  Do
> it now.  Well, what are you waiting for?
>                                   Sincerely,
>                              Sleazy Publisher's Action Marketing (SPAM)

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} Well, my mother and I are entering the Mother-Daughter Pillsbury
} Bake-Off tommorrow.  We have to cook Chicken 500 different ways without
} using oil, tomatoes or the Colonel's secret recipe.

--- 122-04 ---------------------------------------------------------------
Selected-By: Steve Kinzler <kinzler@cs.indiana.edu>

The Usenet Oracle has pondered your question deeply.
Your question was:

> what did you think of the Alarm concert last night?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} It was incredible.  They truly played from the soul, in the great
} tradition of followers of Truth.  Unafraid of what they might find, they
} ventured alone into the deepest recesses of our culture, and what they
} found there was as fascinating as it was disturbing...  Hatred.
} Madness.  Greed.  Anger.  Desperation.  An unretouched photo of the
} godless, eternal void that we live in, this concert may have been one of
} the truly great works of performance art in the history of mankind.
}
} But gimme that old-time rock 'n roll any day.
}
} You owe the Oracle a complete collection of Chuck Berry albums.

--- 122-05 ---------------------------------------------------------------
Selected-By: Steve Kinzler <kinzler@cs.indiana.edu>

The Usenet Oracle has pondered your question deeply.
Your question was:

>       Dear Oracle,
>               Why did the chicken cross the road???

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} The origin of this joke is based on the supposedly hilarious inablility
} to tell the facts of life to children.  Abraham Lincoln, in fact, was
} credited with the first utterance of this joke soon after the trial of
} John Cass, at which he was the prosecutor.  The true answer is that
} there are roosters on the other side.  The joke is that anything but the
} true answer is supplied.
}
} With time, the meaning of the joke has changed, just as our (in)ability
} to tell the facts of life to children have changed.  The most common
} answer (occurring 72% of the time according to national polls) is "To
} get to the other side," thus giving evidence that the Great Sexual
} Silence is no longer a prominent issue, and therefore has a chance to
} change.

--- 122-06 ---------------------------------------------------------------
Selected-By: Steve Kinzler <kinzler@cs.indiana.edu>

The Usenet Oracle has pondered your question deeply.
Your question was:

> I got a letter in the mail saying I may have won a dream vacation
> weekend in Hawaii with Lisa, "THE PRESENT NET.GODDESS LUSTED AFTER BY SO
> MANY!"
>
> I called the 1-800 number and they want me to send $49.99 to claim my
> prize.
>
> Is this on the level?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} It definitely is.  This was an experiment by the Oracular Institute of
} Psychology on how people reacts to unbelivably good offers.  Since we
} are a respectable institution we will of course honour the agreement.
}
} You(and 28.57% of everbody tested) made group 4a:
}  'Rang number, did not accept at once, consulted other sources, said
} sources being the Usenet Oracle'.
}
} Be the way, the offer does NOT include travel or stay, only the name of
} the beach she will be on.  She is also be heavily bodyguarded.
}
} You owe the oracle $49.99.

--- 122-07 ---------------------------------------------------------------
Selected-By: Steve Kinzler <kinzler@cs.indiana.edu>

The Usenet Oracle has pondered your question deeply.
Your question was:

> When they installed the control device in my brain, why did they turn up
> the knobs for promescuity and wetting my pants so high?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

}      Your going to have to ask your programmers for the answer to that
} question.
}                                       The Usenet Oracle.

--- 122-08 ---------------------------------------------------------------
Selected-By: Steve Kinzler <kinzler@cs.indiana.edu>

The Usenet Oracle has pondered your question deeply.
Your question was:

> What's the command to print a page?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} ten-HUT!
} PRIVATE!
} Print a page.
} DIS-missed.

--- 122-09 ---------------------------------------------------------------
Selected-By: Steve Kinzler <kinzler@cs.indiana.edu>

The Usenet Oracle has pondered your question deeply.
Your question was:

> I enjoy reading your humorous and insightful answers on the net.  I
> often get a chuckle out of them, and once in a while I feel like I have
> some new understanding of what the universe is all about.
>
> Recently we have been told that the Oracle's postings on the net are
> becoming more popular, and the number of people interested in the Oracle
> is growing.  There are numerous warnings throughout the net (in
> automated postings, news-sending programs, and introductory news
> documents) that using the net results in costs in hundreds if not
> thousands of dollars.
>
> It's never clear just WHO is spending all of this money, but I will take
> it on faith that SOMEONE is dishing out big bucks so that I can spend
> all day reading alt.flame.
>
> But Oracle:  I worry a bit, now.  If EVERYONE on the net were to realize
> how wonderful the Oracle is, and were to start asking questions and
> receiving answers, wouldn't every site be in danger?  Wouldn't the costs
> of dispensing Oracular wisdom be millions if not billions or trillions
> of dollars?  Could not, then, the Oracular software be accused of being
> some sort of colossal worm program, and thus be subject to prosecution
> under the laws of the US Government?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} You call me a worm?  You are a nodding hillbilly!  You are a stinking
} twerp!  You should be struck with a sphinx!  You should be kept away
} from Souther California beaches and recreation areas!  You should be
} victimized by tough state and local legislation!  You should be
} transported from place to place in a special double-hulled ship!  You
} are a full-scale disaster on a coastline!  You need initiative!  You
} should be deeply concerned about terrorists!  Etc!
}
} You owe the Oracle some more insults.

--- 122-10 ---------------------------------------------------------------
Selected-By: Steve Kinzler <kinzler@cs.indiana.edu>

The Usenet Oracle has pondered your question deeply.
Your question was:

>  Is everything really packed into incredibly tiny spaces, or is it just
> my mind struggling like a captive, drowning rat, struggling to escape
> the dark prison of my head?  Do you mind my asking?  Oh no, I've blown
> it, I've asked two questions, I might as well give up, but wait, you're
> the Oracle, you understand these things, and you're my friend, aren't
> you?  Oh blast, that's three questions now, I've really done it, I'll
> just stuff myself into this empty yogurt container and pray for fruit.

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} Yes, you've really done it this time.  Again.  If you are not able to
} restrict yourself to one question, you'd better not try to ask at all.
}
} You may get help from Oracle Questioner Anonymous,
} orac-quest-anon@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu.
}
} PS.  Make sure you're comfortable inside the yogurt container, the fruit
} will be delayed.  Barbara can teach you how to stuff yourself into tiny
} spaces, she's the expert on that.